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Greetings, Carl here.
This podcast is super simple, it's me wandering through the world noticing things about how to align my use of capital (time and money) with what is actually important to me.
-Carl
Greetings. This is Carl, and you're listening to Behavior Up Radio. So here's a question for you. It's about providing, and this has recently sparked some really interesting conversations between, me and a guest on 50 Fires, the other podcast I do. Here's the question, and I'm gonna first frame it from the perspective of a parent.
Carl:As a parent, what does it mean to provide? I can't wait to have this conversation with my wife. We're leaving, at least on the day that I'm recording this, we're leaving on a a long road trip. So we'll be in the car for a couple hours, and this is one of the questions I wanna ask. What does it mean to provide?
Carl:And, of course, we can flip this around and ask it from a child's perspective. As somebody who was once a child, what does it mean to be provided for? Now the reason I find this so interesting is I think it has probably changed quite a bit. And there's all sorts of like, I can feel it. There's all sorts of interesting, almost, like, primal needs I have around providing.
Carl:Whenever you use that phrase, I think of, like of course, I think of safety and shelter and food and warmth, but it it's really interesting when one of your kids asks for something that for some reason they consider normal. Right? It could be the neighborhood you live in. It could be something they saw on Instagram. It could be something they read.
Carl:It it could actually indeed be, quote, unquote, normal, or it could just be some, you know, cultural myth of normal. But when they ask for it, especially when you see it in their eyes, and we have a phrase for this, like, tugs on your heartstrings, sort of pointing at that feeling of, like, there's a there's a there's obviously a line, and I'm curious where the line is for you in terms of providing. Right? I I don't want my kids to be disappointed that I couldn't provide something that was really important to them, and I know for sure that it would not be a good thing to provide, quote, unquote, everything that was asked for. And all that gray area in the middle is what I'm interested in.
Carl:Yeah. Because we could go back 100 of years, and it would be, like, much clearer what it means to provide safety and shelter, food. Right? Like, that might be the extent of it. Well, what does it mean now?
Carl:What about the vacation? Everybody else in the neighborhood skis. What about a car to get to and from school? Is that providing? What about a college education?
Carl:Is that providing these things? And, and I am super interested in the feeling that you have and what it does to your own self of self esteem, your own belief in yourself as a parent, as a human, as a provider when we have to say no? This is another interesting piece vein of this thought is what about there's something that you would like to provide and you believe it would actually be helpful to your child and you can't? Because that certainly comes up all the time. How does that feel?
Carl:Right? What about the things that are actually neutral? They're not helpful. They're not bad. They're not good.
Carl:They're just something your child wants. And you say no because, of course, the last thing you'd wanna do is give your child everything they want. That's that's kinda silly. But how does that feel? Have you ever dealt with the feeling of, like, oh, no.
Carl:I don't wanna let like, my job is to provide as a parent. I don't wanna let my spouse or partner or kids down. Man, I feel really bad that that thing was very important to my spouse or my kids, and I wasn't able listen to those words. I wasn't able to provide that. Fascinating.
Carl:So I'm just gonna return to the question. What does it mean to you to provide? Have that conversation. Cheers my friends.